Extremes
My writing has evolved over the two years since we started. I think it’s improved, though lately I’m pushed to find the time to really hone each post in the way I’d like to. I often read and re-read my words, knowing that I can improve them but not really having the time to polish a piece to the level I’d like to.
I’ve always been self-critical, sometimes to extremes, but I know there are deficiencies in my technique, and coupled with the time pressures this often leaves me feeling “could have done better”. Anyway, enough of the sulking.
Apart from the improvement that comes with practice and reading more than I ever have done, there’s the issue of subject matter. I find myself drawn to subjects that are extreme. I don’t mean extreme in a sexual nature, though I do allude to this in some of my stories and touch on it briefly in others when the plot demands it. No, I mean the effect that extreme circumstances have on human beings.
Suze and I have a great relationship, physically, emotionally and intellectually. We fit very well together, so while we do post about our sex lives, I think that is becoming less and less frequent for one very good reason. Yes, we have great sex, yes we explore each other with an unfettered openness and sense of adventure that can only happen when two people are truly right for each other. But do you want to hear about that all the time? I think not, occasionally yes, especially if we discover some new aspect of sex or reach a new level of understanding about the dynamics of our sexuality, but to hear every day how “we had such great sex last night …” I don’t think so.
What I find much more interesting to explore is what makes people who they are sexually, and what happens to people when they are placed in extreme situations. Any human being can find themselves in a position where they feel torn apart by outside influences. Circumstances often conspire to put humans under intolerable stress and this changes people, sometimes for a few moments, sometimes for the rest of their lives.
Suze and I have our problems, at the moment because of the lack of funds in the house. Now Suze is working this situation should slowly improve, but even that has tested our relationship from time to time. However because we love each other this financial blip is just part of the journey we’re travelling together. One day we’ll look back on it as character building, I hope LOL.
To explore the real extremes I have to use fiction, I have no aspirations to become the next Tom Clancy (do we need another?) or Clive Barker, but violent conflict brings out the best and the worst in people and the supernatural taps into our most primal of instincts and fears. That is why my current fiction takes the form it does.
My writing also reflects my hopes and fears for the future. Sadly my fears weigh far more heavily on my mind than they ought to. I’m not a depressive type, far from it I tend to be a hopeless optimist, but I’m a realist and I see a world with dwindling resources, uncaring leaders and societies putting their personal greed before their children’s future. Can we avoid our children having to wage wars over the dusty remains of a once beautiful world? I hope so, though the road to a sustainable way of life for all of us is a treacherous one paved with good intentions and it is so easy to be distracted from our ultimate goal unless we’re utterly selfless in our quest for a future for our species.
I read somewhere once that during our evolution the branch of the primate tree from which we derive was so depleted by environmental change and predation that there may have been only 2,000 individuals alive on the planet. Pre-humans a breath away from extinction and unaware of what their descendants would one day achieve. Having survived that it would be an appalling if we were to now wipe ourselves out.
I didn’t want this to turn into an environmental/anti-war rant so I’ll say no more on my current state of mind.
Let me leave you with a message of hope.
In the mid eighties a BBC news report came out of Africa which moved the world to do something positive to help people on another continent. Live Aid raised money and more importantly awareness of the problems facing Africans and soon, I believe, to face us all. Live Aid inspired a charity called Comic Relief. This runs a massive media event in the UK every two years, the lead-up to which is taking place now and culminates this Friday 16 March 2007 with “The Big One” on BBC 1.
The link to the charity’s website is on the top of our sidebar. If you can, please donate a little to this very worthy cause and as Lenny Henry put it on Radio 1 the other day “Help your neighbour next door and your neighbour in Africa”.
We all deserve a future where we can live in peace with each other and with the dignity that comes from being given the chance to help ourselves.
A very interesting post, Alex. Exploring the cutting edge of our sexuality is a worthwhile objective–one I aspire to myself at my place. I’m convinced there is so much to explore that you (and Suze) and I and a lot of others could write for years and never exhaust the topic.
While there are reasons for pessimism about the world (I won’t recount them), there are also reasons to be optimistic about the future. Consider our communication through blogspace, for example. This was impossible a mere 20 years ago. Now you and I can spread our ideas around the world, hopefully open some minds and gain some converts, and make some progress toward a saner society. Think of the further improvements we will have 20 years from now. Impossible to stop the madness? Only if we stop trying!
We don’t have Red Nose in the U.S., but there are plenty of other charities that do good work, and I encourage all of our readers to support them.
Bravo Alex…well put! I must say I loved the story you wrote about the future some time ago; it certainly painted a grim future for the children(mine amongst them) who will inherit the Earth.
I’ve heard the same about the 2000 individuals; they must have been a resourceful bunch to have survived and prospered. I know I’m amongst the 98 percent of people who would wage the great Resource War(and it’s coming) and lose woefully. As soon as the supermarkets crash and burn- so will I…
Our Nose Day is a little further on in the year; I usually buy my kids one each from their school and once had one on my car!
Good post Alex, and your writing has always found good reviews with this blogger. While your fears for the future are valid, just remember…….ever Roman…Spartan……Persian soldier had the same fears for his family…..looking just a generation or two ahead. 🙂
Well said Alex. I’m not much of a one for erotic fiction but for your writings (and Urban Gypsy’s) I make an exception. The care you take shines through in the quality of the writing.
When we were in UK we never used to miss Red Nose day I expect we’ve still got the t-shirts somewhere. It’s being held over here for the first time this year and the country’s nurses are into it big time. They’ll all be wearing red noses on friday.
I have special happy memories of Red Nose Day 1988. We were weekending with a whole bunch of college mates in Cardiff and Mrs F.C. came out with the news that she was pregnant. And yes, we had doubts about what sort of a world we were choosing to bring children into. (Reagan was in the White House, Cruise missiles were arriving at Greenham Common – just down the road from us, etc etc) but we seem to have survived.
I love getting to know about you and Suze. I like the personal details about your life that make me feel like a priveleged friend.
As always, I enjoy your writing Alex. I like the homefront topics of your life with Suze while at the same time enjoy your eye opening and thought provoking entries about the problems of today and how they affect our future and the future of our children. Being a mom myself, I think about this all the time. I wonder what life will be like in 20 years for my son and try to come up with ideas on how I can make it better for him. Granted, I am only one person, but through your insight and blogging, many other people are becoming more educated and aware. And, I hope they will join us in donating to charities that will better the world. Thank you for using this medium to bring real world issues to people. Like Cherrie said, we did not have this medium 20 years ago…so, now we can use it to open some minds as well as educate. Just imagine what other things will pop up to do the same thing in the upcoming years.
You do yourself justice exploring the extremes through fiction, because you do it so well; there is a tendency in the sex blogosphere for stories to focus only on ideal circumstances…a guy is always ‘hard’, a woman is always slender, things that, if the sex were removed, could double for Mills and Boon romance; the type of romance that doesn’t exist in the real world, and while it sells, while there are authors who happily write those sagas, they’re limited.
Writing can be a bed of nails; full of sado-masochistic turns. From one side, a writer explores the extremes, wielding words to create an image that may shock, rouse, or excite a reader, without guilt, and on the other, some readers may not a appreciate how a story or idea is handled, because they’re accustomed to particular genres or scenes, and they may cool off.
At the end of it all, it’s important that a person remain true to themselves.
We have Red Nose Day here, I think later on in the year, at work we always have a day allocated for fund raising, in the foyer, and on each level; it’s one of the good things that some corporations contribute to (as they too, gradually understand the importance behind nurturing humanity, but I think the funds we raise here in Australia tend to stay in Australia).
You’ve made me think about the figures on SIDS deaths, whether they’re higher in developed countries, compared to other countries that have adhered to traditional methods of child rearing; Here in Australia, after a campaign for mothers to place their babies on their backs to sleep (as a preventative measure, although not proven to prevent SIDS), there was another issue that followed, that of babies with craniums (toward the back of the head).